Glimmer, Victorious
by VaraReadsTooMuch
Summary: AU, rated T for one particularly violent incident and general violent themes, i.e. kids killing kids. Pairings: Clove and Cato. One-shot. Glimmer has won the 74th Annual Hunger Games, but she has lost so much more. One irreplaceable friend, the boy she loved, and possibly, her sanity. This is her story.


**Hi guys :)**

** This is my first story posted on this site. It is told from a third person limited POV (that is, limited to Glimmer), and is a one-shot. However, I am thinking of expanding it into a full story if people like it, so _please_ leave reviews.** **Enjoy :)**

The Victor's Crown rested heavily on Glimmer's head. She stared out into the cheering crowd, knowing full well that their cheers were false: no-one had expected the stunning girl from the luxury district to be smart enough, or strong enough, to win this year's Hunger Games. She had proven them all wrong, on both counts, but it didn't matter. Not now, when she felt so empty inside.

She did little over the entire day, but felt exhausted by the end of it. When she was finally allowed back to her new, private house in the Victor's Village, she collapsed onto her bed. Staring at the ceiling, she allowed the river of memories from the Arena to course through her. There were some she hated, and desperately wanted to forget, but equally, there were others that she fiercely held on to.

_The tracker jackers_. Searing venom that almost killed her, and _did_ kill the district four girl, ravaging through their veins until it felt like there was nothing left. The hallucinations that made her scream and scream and scream. It was Clove, in the end, who managed to calm her down, and stayed with her until all the poison was gone from her system. She owed the District Two girl for that, but her debt was never repaid.

_Marvel's death_. A happy memory, actually, callous as that sounded. Glimmer didn't know her district partner before the games, and didn't care for him during. He was arrogant, surly and rude, continually trying to force himself on her like an aroused golden retriever. Finding his corpse with an arrow through its heart was a relief, if anything – Glimmer had been planning to end him herself that day, and the Girl on Fire had taken that effort off her hands.

_Clove's death_. More painful than Glimmer would have thought possible. She always knew that the tiny, fierce girl from district two would have to die, but she had grown fond of her nonetheless. Of course, Clove dying created an opportunity with Cato, but Glimmer had more decency than that. To make a move on a living stranger's boyfriend was the norm, but to do so on a dead friend's lover? Unthinkable.

It is often said that the Career tributes had no honour, but Glimmer knew this was a lie. To win the Games was an honour in itself, and as such, it was only right that the Victor was the most honourable person of all. Careers never stabbed in the back, or claimed to be any less skilled than they were in hopes of deception. That was for lesser tributes. And it was the same with personal affairs, no matter how important they seemed.

From the moment she set eyes on him, Glimmer had been transfixed by Cato. She had watched him volunteer in the reaping playback, her eyes widening at his golden hair, his confident smile, his muscle-bound arms. She also watched the horror on his face as his district partner was reaped. At first glance, Clove had appeared indifferent, but her dark eyes betrayed shock and terror.

When they arrived in the Training Centre, it became clear that Cato and Clove were a couple. Not immediately; they were both subtle. But when Marvel started flirting with Clove, as he had done with the majority of the female tributes, Cato had exploded.

"Keep your perverted hands off my girlfriend," he'd snarled, pinning Marvel against a wall. Cato was far stronger than Marvel, and had he not been stopped, he would probably have killed the conceited philanderer there and then, despite the rules of the Games. But Clove had walked up to him, resting a small hand on his forearm.

"Leave it," she'd said, adding, "He's hardly worth the trouble." Cato had reluctantly nodded, and releasing a gasping, red-faced Marvel, walked away with his arm tightly around Clove's waist. Glimmer had looked on in envy.

She had decided to hate Clove, but that proved impossible. The girl was intelligent, brave and fiery, and Glimmer not only liked her, but respected her. The long-established Alliance between the Career districts formed once again, and at the start of the games, Glimmer was optimistic.

The feast had been the beginning of the end. At that point, the Alliance was down to Cato, Clove, and Glimmer herself. So, between the three of them, they had painstakingly formed a plan.

Clove, being the fastest of the three and the best long-range fighter, would collect the two packages. Cato and Glimmer would survey the woods surrounding the Cornucopia, killing off any other tributes they could. It should have run smoothly, like clockwork.

_But it didn't_, and the memory tortured Glimmer as she lay on her bed. _It really, really didn't_.

"Cato!" Glimmer had been chasing the flame-haired district five girl, when she caught Clove's scream. "CATO!"

"Clove!" As Glimmer abandoned her prey for the Cornucopia, she heard Cato call back to his district partner frantically. "Clove, I'm coming!"

Katniss and Thresh were nowhere to be seen when Glimmer arrived. Only Clove, lying much too still, and Cato sobbing in anguish at her side. "Clove, please, stay with me, I can't do this without you! Please, Clove! Don't leave me." Glimmer had looked on, from the edge of the clearing. Every other tribute in the Arena would pay for this. Of that, she was sure.

She'd walked back to their base with Cato, who was now red-eyed, and silent as the grave. She held out her hand for him, and hesitantly, he took it. In that moment, she knew that this was more than a crush; she was in love with him, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Cato had lost his mind after that – there was no other way of putting it. Clove's death had completely and utterly destroyed him.

When they had caught up with Thresh, Cato exacted his revenge ruthlessly. He didn't spear him with a sword, or even break his neck. Instead, he had crushed Thresh's skull with his bare hands, and then ripped open the dead tributes ribcage, holding his heart aloft, like a trophy that would somehow bring back his beloved. But nothing ever would.

In the end, killing Cato was an act of mercy. Every night, he would scream out for Clove. His mind deteriorated more and more each day, and he lost his ability to tell reality from nightmare. Perhaps that was because there wasn't much difference: in both, Clove never came.

Glimmer had rolled over one night, awoken by the ever-present screaming. She'd looked at Cato, her heart a dead weight in her chest, as she selected one of the knives – Clove's knives – that he always kept by him. "Goodbye, my love," she whispered softly. "Sweet dreams."

The caress of an ice-cold blade was the only kiss she ever gave him.

Noiselessly, she'd waited by the body as the hovercraft came to collect it. Some hours later, the canon for the girl from five went off; presumably she'd been killed by Twelve. Glimmer hardly cared.

The Finale didn't really deserve its grand title. Lover Boy's neck had snapped easily in Glimmer's hands, and Katniss – the much-heralded "Girl on fire" – had been blinded by rage. It had been effortless to throw her, like a ragdoll, to the mutts. She had screamed and screamed, but Glimmer felt no pity for this stranger. There was no room left in her heart for such a trivial emotion.

Sometime before the dawn, a canon sounded, along with the victory trumpets. And Glimmer had been taken from the Arena, and her injuries had been healed, and she herself had been crowned victor, and now she lay in her strange new bed in her strange new home in Victor's Village. She didn't know what to feel, and for the first time since before the reaping, she cried. But her tears ran their course as all things do. And then she was back to where she started, on her pristine white sheets, facing a loneliness as large and unending as the night sky.

The six months from that night until the victory tour were an empty succession of days and nights, during which nothing ever changed. The thought the tour was abhorrent to her, but still she managed to drag herself out of bed on that hideous morning. Her mind was blank as she was primed to even greater perfection by her stylists. All she wanted to do was hide.

But Glimmer never hid. It did not become her. So she put on her fake smile, which she knew was still stunning, and laughed her fake laugh, which she knew was still melodious. This was pure, agonising hell to her. But Glimmer had gone through hell before, and survived. She would survive again.


End file.
